Topic: Maat, The Global Goddess for Just Societies and Nations Entry 6

Title: God Lives within us so Human Dignity and Worth, and the Light within Must be Protected Part 2

Video Inspired By: African Conceptions and Practices of Manhood and Womanhood (Episode #054)

(LINK) https://youtu.be/S7NzKsmb0Ag

In the last part I mentioned Baba T’Shaka’s statement that the ideal man for the Bambara is Maa or Godly; a word lacking one letter before it becomes Maat. In the above lecture, where this statement came from, Baba T’Shaka also comments on how Afrikan-American mother’s always find something to praise about their children, even when their children are rotten to the core. This latter statement captures the Afrikan-American’s true essence as it is related to how we interact with Humanity. Influenced and formed by the former statement, we see Humanity as an outgrowth from our early beginnings, they are the fruit from our loins, so to speak; and so, despite their flaws, we shower them with as much love, forgiveness and advice we can. Practicing patience as our offspring fall repeatedly or continue to make the same mistakes or new ones despite our warning them of the negative consequences they will be invoking. Now this may sound condescending, but when looking at the relationship between Afrikans and the colonizer world, no other explanation makes sensible the soft-handed approach many have taken to try and convince would be colonizers and imperialists not to do the harm they were preparing to carry out. Only a patient parental figure, who held within them a deep love for their offspring would tolerate such harm without resorting to behavior violent in disposition to drive back the an aggress so vicious its tolerance has placed the entire planets habitability in jeopardy. Yet the Afrikan has done just that – for better or worse, they’ve allowed their seeds to take root throughout this terrestrial plane and become as they saw fit.

In each human we came across during the Maafa, we saw in them, us. We saw in them Maa, the light from their eternal Godspark. We saw in them, divinity and thus we saw in them the Divine Right to Life, Maturity and Prosperity; a right that was denied us from the very moment those people saw us. Interestingly, the word Individual, a mainstay in the European lexicon which is used to give context to every aspect protruding from European culture, is said to mean “indivisible” or “having a continuity of existence in all its changes”, a nod to a divine substance no longer referenced in scientific literature but believed to have been Godly in origin, thus placing humanity as a specimen created by God. Though expressed well in written form, practically this idea was reserved for those humans determined to be more God then man; a distinction, ironically, only affixed to people whose origins where on the subcontinent called Europe (or the people who created the language). Even after this distinction was made clear to them, though, the Afrikan didn’t shirk its well-developed and up till the Arab slave trade, well-confirmed view; in fact and reality they seemed to rest on it to get through the longest darkest nights traversed during the Maafa.

Belief in the ultimate goodness in Humanity, including white Humanity, spurred the enslaved Afrikan forward even when the demonic entanglements motivating their most egregious actions, distorting their offspring’s visages to the point where the animal tendencies brought under control during the earliest days in our Human development, began to resurface throughout their physical appearance. To counter this resurrected beast, the untamed animalistic brain that reduced humanity to a mankind subspecies state; steps where undertaken to make provisions to fight off the troublesome hoards with attention to injuring or killing as few of the aggressors as possible. Even at this stage in the Maafa, did this divine belief keep the afflicted Afrikans from seeking mass retribution from terroristic acts that often did result in injuries to members and the general infrastructure within the community. Yet it was also this deep belief in human divinity that conjured the will to fight off those forces seeking to harm them. Here I need to make a note about the preceding paragraph whose language may be seen as a bit flamboyant and incendiary. My inspiration for these words do not derive themselves entirely from Dr. T’Shaka; Dr. King on numerous occasions talked about the hellfire evident on the faces of those white southerners who opposed desegregation and the end to Jim Crow. He spoke about the distorted looks on their faces and the postures they took when screaming obscenities to non-white people. He described this distortion as a burden, a nod to a possessive energy that must be stripped away from the Being in order to return them to their natural disposition. This possessive energy still stalks the land today, it is the motivating force behind much of the MAGA countermovement, it was the motivating force behind the Neoconservative countermovement which utilized racial dog whistles to build its influence throughout the South and Midwest, and it is the motivation behind the anti-WOKE, anti-DEI and anti-CRT countermovement to undo all things corrective non-white people won in their past struggles.

We as Afrikans in America must now see that for the us, Maa and Maat, were incalculable in their efforts to survive the tribulation period known as the Maafa (and yes, its occurred to me that Maa, Maat and Maafa all have M A A as their beginning); it has equally been important as we’ve tried to recover from the harm done during the most destructive moments within that period. We must now see, the reason acknowledging this fact is required is because the Maafa has not yet ended. The Maafa will not truly be over until the systems that made it possible (or rather, necessary) are overturned and replaced. As we move forward into the latter part in this decade, we will likely see the a major challenge to these systems rise to prominence for the first time in many decades, in fact we may already be seeing it. The success of Bernie Sanders, AOC and progressive alternative media suggest something is changing the body politic throughout this country. Though many people might not realize it, this change is primarily the result from a deeper need for spiritual meaning in life. A meaning that would refocus society on Maa and Maat – the world may in due time, look to us for instruction on this refocusing.

In the next installment I will speak about how (some of) Maat’s precepts help us, Afrikans in Americans, remain grounded to Maa as wellspring within us.